


red in the face

by flavus



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Fluff, M/M, New York City, ace james (but so slight lol), james is a baker!, nonbinary lafayette!, so much of it, thomas is a landlord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 00:47:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10686336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flavus/pseuds/flavus
Summary: featuring a hopeless thomas jefferson, a lawyer-turned-baker james madison, and a crap ton of mistletoe. though not necessarily in that order.





	red in the face

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from tumblr:  
> our landlord really went all out with the mistletoe, huh? au
> 
> title from "what did i miss" :~)
> 
> i should work on the challenge demands satisfaction or other stuff in the i just might- 'verse but instead i wrote shameless fluff i'm sorry it'S NOT EVEN CHRISTMAS
> 
> enjoy though :")

James woke with an impossibly clogged nose and a pounding headache. Which weren’t completely abnormal for him, anyway - his allergies were notorious for popping up at inopportune times, particularly his favorite seasons, fall and spring.  
  
“But it’s winter,” he moaned. “In New York, nonetheless. What possible reason could there be for me to have _allergies_ ?”   
  
Even though no one could hear his griping, it helped him to let it out anyway, and he pulled himself out of his bed, coughing. Though his nose was stuffed, he could almost smell a pungent aroma outside his door, so he walked unsteadily toward his door and pulled it open, to find -   
  
“Holy hell,” he breathed, in shock. “Why is there so much mistletoe?”   
  
It was draped around every door, looped around the staircase and elevator entry, and sprigs of it were hanging from the ceiling, poised to catch unaware observers in a Christmas spell. Or to matchmake them against their will. Or, in James’s case, to set off terrible allergies in the dead of winter.   
  
He shook his head. He really needed to find a new place to live.   
  
\---   
  
“Do you think he’ll like it?” Thomas Jefferson, self-proclaimed business magnate (though his only business was owning the semi-swanky apartment complex located a few miles away from the heart of New York City) and fashion icon, asked his friend Lafayette.   
  
Lafayette chuckled. It was a sight to behold their friend barefoot and wearing a fluffy magenta robe, in the middle of winter, pacing the barely-bigger-than-a-box room while fiddling anxiously with his curls.   
  
“ _Mon chere_ , I’m sure it’ll be fine. Although you know, you’ve never actually _talked_ to him, so maybe that’s how you don’t know what he likes?” Lafayette joked, nudging Thomas gently.   
  
“It’s not fair!” Thomas moaned. “He just goes about his life quietly, acting like he doesn’t know that he’s probably the most magnificent human being to walk this earth! Well. Besides me, of course,” he smirked, then slumped onto the couch Lafayette was sitting on.   
  
“Thomas,” Lafayette chided, not unkindly, “You’ve had this crush on James for over a year and the only time you talk to him is when he calls to tell you that he’s put his payment in for the month.”   
  
“He wouldn’t have to put a payment in if he moved in with me,” Thomas offered helpfully.   
  
“You don’t even know each other!”   
  
“I can change that. It’ll be the best Christmas gift!”   
  
“You’ve said that every single holiday since James moved in, and done nothing to actually get to know him.”   
  
“Fair enough.” Thomas buried his face in his hands and Lafayette sighed. Their friend was absolutely helpless, for being such an example of overt self-confidence ninety-nine-percent of the time.   
  
“Maybe I should set up a blind date,” Lafayette mused thoughtfully, before Thomas whacked them with a pillow and they reconsidered.   
  
“Seriously, though. Thomas, just talk to him! I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’re quite the people person, anyway, and I mean - if you don’t do it, I will just so I can stop hearing about you whine about it,” they said, half-jokingly, as they walked to the door. “It’s Christmastime, so I’m sure he’s feeling happy about it - who doesn’t like Christmas?”   
  
Thomas pondered Lafayette’s suggestions for a moment before coming up with an idea.   
  
“I’ll bring him the best wreath ever! And a pastry from that one bakery he always carries in bags from.”   
  
He smiled to himself. Was he a genius, or was he a _genius_?   
  
Okay. He actually had to talk this time, instead of just _doing_ something and assuming that James would know it was for him.   
  
Thoughts of the time that he’d plastered cheesy and garish red and pink hearts around the complex, with the biggest silk heart on James’s door, and the time that he’d left a huge Easter egg filled with all sorts of candy on James’s mat when he just left a small one in front of other tenants’ came to mind.   
  
No. He would talk to James, he resolved. And the wreath - or maybe a Christmas tree? - would be the proverbial cherry on top.   
  
\---   
  
“These damn allergies are really making me hate Christmas,” James grumbled to his coworker, Dolley Payne, as he pulled a fresh tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven. He couldn’t even smell how good they were, and it was annoying him.   
  
“Maybe you should try talking to your landlord about these things? I mean, who else would go overboard like that?” Dolley suggested. She was about to suggest the possibility that the landlord, Thomas, was enamored with her friend - why else would he leave a huge Easter egg filled with candy in front of James’s door, when he left small ones in front of everyone else’s? She remembered the story he’d told her all those months ago. But James was ace, she reminded herself. He might not return Thomas’s affections, and that would make for an awkward confrontation.   
  
“I have half a mind to, honestly. Remember Halloween?”   
  
“Your expression when you opened the door and saw that there was a huge fake spider outside your door was _priceless_ , though! I mean, how was he to know that you don’t like insects?”   
  
“You’re not wrong,” James said, shrugging. “At the very least, he’s not a Scrooge.” He personally thought the overblown decorations were kind of cute, but what did he know? It wasn’t like he’d ever had any substantial conversation with his landlord, Thomas, anyway.   
  
“True,” Dolley smiled. The two of them finished taking out the baked goods from the ovens - alongside the cinnamon rolls James loved so much were snowflake cookies, James’s specialty, and winter-themed cake pops, which James painstakingly decorated.   
  
Their bakery, Montpelier, had opened almost a year ago, with Dolley acting as the publicist and face of the company, and James as its heart and soul. Though he’d planned to be a lawyer growing up, he’d always felt a calling to baking. He was never very good at words, stumbling over them in class and preferring to write instead of speak, but he formed relationships through sharing baked goods. One of those relationships was with Dolley, who’d he’d met in middle school.   
  
“I remember the first time I tasted one of these cookies,” Dolley sighed, swiping one of them off of the baking sheet, much to James’s chagrin. “I mean, I did kind of just take it off the ground instead of off the baking sheet,” she laughed. James smiled, after reminding her that “not all of our baked goods are free, y’know.”   
  
She’d been regaled of tales of James’s great baking, and especially of his cookies, which she was dying to try but didn’t have the courage to ask him about, so one day when she saw a cookie fall to the ground, she swooped it up and ate it all. James was horrified, swearing that he would make her cookies that hadn’t been made dirty from touching ground, and from that day on they were inseparable.   
  
He watched her with a warm look as she finished setting out the baked goods, drawing swirls and snowflakes on the outside of the display case and moving to open up the bakery.   
  
“Thanks for being here, Dolley,” he said, wrapping her in a hug.   
  
“What’s this for? Also, Jemmy, you know I love you, but you’re sick,” she chuckled, squirming out of the hug.   
  
“It’s just allergies,” he rolled his eyes. “I just - I’m glad. If there’s anyone that I could’ve opened a bakery up with, it’s you.”   
  
“Aw! I’m swooning,” Dolley laughed, but there was a twinkle in her eyes as she did. “Should I put up some mistletoe so we can celebrate the occasion?”   
  
“Get out.”   
  
\---   
  
“What was that bakery again? I swear, I really don’t need to go back to the apartment right now - I’m sure James is still at work,” Thomas muttered, clutching a six-foot-pine tree in his arms.   
  
“It’s a great deal,” the salesman had said. “It’s much cheaper than buying a wreath, and real trees are _so_ in vogue now!”   
  
What else could Thomas do but take it? And now, he was struggling through the snow-covered streets of New York holding a Christmas tree, which wasn’t ideal in the midst of the holiday rush - shoppers were everywhere, carrying bags filled with merchandise from places from Macy’s to Spencer’s.   
  
“Maybe I should just go back,” he sighed, checking his watch. He’d find the bakery some other time. As he turned to head back to the apartment, he was jostled by a passerby who shot him a dirty look.   
  
“Watch where you’re going, will ya?”   
  
“Oh, hey - you forgot your bag!” Thomas called out after him. The man looked passably grateful and moved to take it, and while handing it off, Thomas noticed the single word on it. “Montpelier,” he whispered.   
  
“Yeah. Best pastries in all of New York, I’d swear by them.”   
  
“Wait! Do you know which direction they are?”   
  
“Take a right just up ahead, and they’ll be the second shop on the left. They’re a bit hole-in-the-wall, but there’s usually a line, so you can’t miss ‘em.” Having said that, the man scurried away and blended into the crowd again, and Thomas all but skipped to the bakery.   
  
He stopped right in front of it and paused to take a breath.   
  
“Okay. Okay. I have no idea what’s good in here -”   
  
“Try the snowflake cookies!” some person standing in line shouted at him.   
  
“-But I’m gonna buy something. Anything. And hopefully it’s what James likes, and-”   
  
“Watch your Christmas tree, dude! There’s people who actually wanna buy things here!”   
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Thomas muttered, moving out of the way. He leaned the tree against the side of the building - there were too many people in the bakery and in line for the tree _not_ to be a nuisance, and joined the line. Thankfully, it moved faster than he thought, and soon he was inside the warm, well-lighted shop, which smelled like home and artificial pine.   
  
“Maybe I should’ve brought the tree. At least real pine is a lot better than-”   
  
“Hi, can I help you?”   
  
“Holy shit.” Thomas was looking straight into James’s eyes, and suddenly he felt like he’d lost all capacity to speak. The man was wearing a goddamn “Kiss the Baker” apron and a Santa hat, and he looked absolutely gorgeous.   
  
“Um,” he stuttered eloquently. “Did you like the mistletoe?” he blurted before he could stop himself.   
  
“I have allergies,” James responded stiffly.   
  
_Was that a twinkle in his eye?_ Thomas thought. “Oh. Sorry. Um, I probably shouldn’t mention that I bought a tree, and was probably going to put it outside your door -”   
  
“Hey, tree guy! Are you gonna buy anything?” a disgruntled customer behind him shouted. At that, Thomas could see a small smile begin to bloom on James’s face, and it somehow made him more flustered and determined to plow on, despite his awkward beginning.   
  
“Um, I was - that tree was actually, uh, for you, but I can return it if you have allergies - and I didn’t know you worked here, I thought it was your favorite since you were always bringing home stuff in a bag from here and -”   
  
“I actually co-own the bakery,” James laughed.   
  
_He has a nice laugh. No, shut up, Thomas, be cool!_ _  
_ _  
_ “Well, um - do you mind if -”   
  
“The poor guy’s trying his hardest!” came a female voice from the back. “Just give him your number, Jemmy!”   
  
_Oh, shit. Jemmy is the cutest fucking nickname I-_ _  
_   
Thomas could’ve sworn he caught James - no, Jemmy - with a slight flush on his cheek as he scribbled his number hastily onto a bag after tossing in a few snowflake cookies - “They’re the specialty, I guess,” he said shyly.   
  
“Uh, so I’ll - see you around, I guess? I mean, not that it’ll be a problem. We live in the same apartment building -”   
  
“If you don’t do something, Jemmy, I will!”   
  
He made a mental note to come back and thank the girl in the back who’d helped him finally, finally break the ice.   
  
\---   
  
That night, James dreamed of kissing his flamboyant landlord underneath the mistletoe.   
  
The next day, he woke up to a thankfully less plugged up nose and a plush mistletoe hanging outside his door, accompanied by a bashful Thomas.   
  
“Hi.”

**Author's Note:**

> i take requests for stuff @sillyhypotheticals on tumblr


End file.
